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Stanley "Joa" Harrison, PE

President and Principal Engineer

If I had to summarize my career path
to aviation it would be simple, "I eat, breath and sleep
airplanes." For some crazy reason I've had this passion and zeal for
flying-things since I was a toddler… and it just won't go away.

Growing up in North Idaho I was constantly designing and building models of
every shape and size: electric powered, gas powered, air powered, chuck gliders,
rockets, sailplanes, control-line, R/C, free flight, and basically anything
that I could make fly. And really designing them too- right there on Dad's big drafting board in his home office. I remember using algebra to
figure out tail volumes for rocket-launched balsa gliders before I even knew to
call it algebra. I would go to the library and check out every book I
could find on airplane design and pour over it until I found the answer or at
least something close that I could understand. Of course I devoured
magazines like Kitplanes, and idolized guys like Burt Rutan and stories
of his canards, and my favorite subjects always ended up being about aircraft
design.

With such a passion it was pretty obvious that the only college field to go into was engineering.So I started at the University of Idaho and managed to study pretty
hard while still having a social life... that is until I found the machine shop. Once I did, I spent as much
time making metal chips and working on student design competitions as I did
putting my nose to the books. But my professors must have been impressed
with my hands-on approach to engineering because I still managed to get good
grades. Of course I didn't give up flying-things. The R/C planes
just got bigger, faster, and lighter and I taught myself to fly an old hang
glider... and even managed to stay out of the emergency room.

After graduating with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering I was hired into
Precision Castparts Corp’s selective Management Development Program in
Portland, OR. Modeled after the very successful General Electric program,
this intense engineering-focused leadership training rotated members though
corporate departments and business units and provided a very thorough business
foundation for my present career. After the 2 ½ year MDP program, I was transferred to
the newly acquired PCC Schlosser division in Redmond, OR where I worked several
years holding increasing positions of responsibility including manufacturing
engineer, second shift plant manager, and company tooling manager. PCC
Schlosser is a world leader in highly complex aerospace titanium castings and I
gained a strong insight into the highly regulated world of aerospace
manufacturing. This experience would become very valuable for my later work with the FAA-Parts Manufacturer Approval process.

While working at PCC my love of aircraft never
waned, it just got more personal. I bought a plane, earned my private
pilot certificate and instrument rating, and even started wrenching on planes
in the evenings and weekends to build time towards my FAA airframe and
powerplant (A&P) license. I was also strongly involved with
amateur-built aircraft and the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and was the
Central Oregon EAA chapter vice-president and president for several years.

I continued to design R/C airplanes in my spare time
and even kitted one of the early electric foamies which I called the Schoolyard
Foamie and shipped all over the world. Since then electric foam
airplanes, and now even foam UAVs that look very similar to my original design, have really taken off so I feel privileged
to have been part of the early efforts.

Wanting to move to designing
larger airplanes, I started Jean Claude Flabel’s excellent Aircraft Stress
Analysis Certificate Program and was one of his earliest students. This
course really proved instrumental with introducing me to the next chapter of my
career.

In July of 2001 I flew my plane to
the Arlington Fly-In and while visiting with a friend involved with mission
aviation heard about a new backcountry aircraft being developed near my
hometown in North Idaho. I immediately knew I had found my next
calling. The 10-place turboprop was called the Spirit 100 and was being
designed by a small team called the Idaho Air Group with the design being led
by an outstanding engineer named Evan Mortenson (who’s father Carl, along with help
from Evan and his brother Ed, had designed and certified two other backcountry aircraft
designs). Hoping to “underpromise and overdeliver” the company was
keeping quiet about their existence but I managed to negotiate my way into the
door at their budding R&D facility in Priest River, ID and speak with Tom
Hamilton, a co-visionary of the project. They were building a production
facility in Sandpoint, ID so I applied and was hired as a manufacturing and
design engineer as the first new employee in their new facility.
Eventually they changed their name to Packer Air and then to Quest Aircraft and ended up naming the plane the Kodiak 100.

Wow, what a way to drink from a firehose
during those early years on the Kodiak! Decades ago I had switched from
Dad’s drafting table, to 2D AutoCAD drawings, and then to early 3D modeling,
but now it was total immersion. Thousands of hours in Solidworks,
SolidEdge, and NX designing aircraft systems, structures, manufacturing aids,
you name it. Year after year running hand and finite element analysis (FEA) calculations, writing
reports, performing tests, developing process specifications, writing repair
manuals, and doing the myriad of activities required to certify a new aircraft
and bring it to market. But what fun!

One of the joys of working in a small
start-up company is that you’re really stretched with wearing many hats.
Thankfully I had a pretty diverse and practical background before coming to
Quest and it really came in handy, especially my airframe and powerplant
experience. My coordination with the FAA over the years was valuable since it helped greatly with the certification process and to gain the
confidence of the FAA in order to become a Designated Engineering
Representative (DER) for aircraft structures and powerplant.

And did I mention that while working
at Quest I built my own experimental plane and flew it hundreds of hours, started a company
for my wife selling vortex generators that I designed (www.landshorter.com), tested to become a Professional Engineer (PE), got my FAA
inspection authorization (A&P I/A), and became a Designated Airworthiness
Representative (DAR) for amateur built and light-sport aircraft?

And now I have my first Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) and Global Alternative Means of Compliance (AMOC) to an Airworthiness Directive (AD) that affects a whole fleet of aircraft (WFA). Ok, I made that last acronym up. But I'm hard at work on the next stage of my career and having more fun than ever.

But enough about me... how can we use my passion and strong work ethic to help your project succeed?